Prime Healthcare Services is an American private company. It was established in 2001 by Chairman of the Board Prem Reddy. It operates 45 acute care hospitals serving communities in San Bernardino, San Diego, Los Angeles, Inglewood, Orange County and Shasta County in California, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Kansas, Rhode Island and Texas. The hospital network has over 42,000 employees and physicians and more than 7,700 patient beds.
Video Prime Healthcare Services
History
Prime Healthcare Services is the fifth largest hospital system in the U.S. with 45 hospitals in 14 states. Its founder, Dr. Prem Reddy, is consistently recognized as one of the most influential healthcare leaders in the country. Reddy founded Prime Healthcare Services in 2001 with the purchase of Desert Valley Hospital. Prime has never sold or closed a hospital, despite acquiring hospitals in financial distress. Prime has been recognized as one of the "15 Top Health Systems" in the nation based on quality care and patient outcomes. The Prime Healthcare Foundation is a 501(c)3 charity established by Dr. Reddy in 2006. The foundation consists of 15 not-for-profit acute care medical facilities and charities that support health education, medical scholarships and free community clinics. The Dr. Prem Reddy Family Foundation is a 501(c)3 charity established by Dr. Reddy in 1989. The foundation provides grants and support for free community clinics, health education programs, college scholarships and other non-profit organizations. The foundation donated more than $5 million to the Victor Valley Community College for scholarships and a new health sciences building, and has given $500,000 to Cal State San Bernadino and its department of nursing. On a global level, the foundation supports Samaritan's Purse by donating equipment used on clinics across poverty stricken regions around the world. The foundation also funds clean water initiatives, childhood vaccination programs, educational grants and new medical clinics to treat blindness. Between 2010 and 2017, Prime Healthcare hospitals provided nearly $6.2 billion in charity and uncompensated care. Prime for-profit and non-profit hospitals provide more charity and uncompensated care on a per patient basis than any other system in California. Prime's operating strategy is unique, allowing clinicians to direct healthcare at every level in order to improve patient outcomes and financial performance. Physicians are encouraged to take an active role in day to day operations of the hospitals. Prime also looks to increase efficiencies in emergency rooms of hospitals it acquires, and invests millions in capital upgrades and new technologies. Between 2005 and 2017, Prime invested $1.1 billion in capital improvements and new technologies at its acquired hospitals.
Hospitals
Alabama
- Riverview Regional Medical Center, Gadsden
California
- Alvarado Hospital Medical Center, San Diego
- Centinela Hospital Medical Center, Inglewood
- Chino Valley Medical Center, Chino
- Desert Valley Hospital, Victorville
- Encino Hospital Medical Center, Encino
- Garden Grove Hospital Medical Center, Garden Grove
- Glendora Community Hospital, Glendora
- Huntington Beach Hospital, Huntington Beach
- La Palma Intercommunity Hospital, La Palma
- Montclair Hospital Medical Center, Montclair
- Paradise Valley Hospital, National City
- San Dimas Community Hospital, San Dimas
- Shasta Regional Medical Center, Redding
- Sherman Oaks Hospital, Sherman Oaks
- West Anaheim Medical Center, Anaheim
Florida
- Lehigh Regional Medical Center, Lehigh Acres
Georgia
- Southern Regional Medical Center, Riverdale
Indiana
- Monroe Hospital, Bloomington
Kansas
- Providence Medical Center, Kansas City
- Saint John Hospital, Leavenworth
Michigan
- Garden City Hospital, Garden City
- Lake Huron Medical Center, Port Huron
Missouri
- St. Joseph Medical Center, Kansas City
- St. Mary's Medical Center, Blue Springs
Nevada
- North Vista Hospital, North Las Vegas
- St. Mary's Regional Medical Center, Reno
New Jersey
- Saint Clare's Behavioral Health, Boonton Township
- Saint Clare's Danville Hospital, Danville
- Saint Clare's Dover Hospital, Dover
- Saint Michael's Medical Center, Newark
- St. Mary's General Hospital, Passaic
Ohio
- Coshocton Regional Medical Center, Coshocton
- East Liverpool City Hospital, East Liverpool
Pennsylvania
- Lower Bucks Hospital, Bristol
- Roxborough Memorial Hospital, Philadelphia
- Suburban Community Hospital, East Norriton
Rhode Island
- Landmark Medical center, Woonsocket
- Rehabilitation Hospital of Rhode Island, North Smithfield
Texas
- Dallas Medical Center, Dallas
- Dallas Regional Medical Center, Mesquite
- Harlingen Medical Center, Harlingen
- Knapp Medical Center, Weslaco
- Mission Regional Medical Center, Mission
- Pampa Regional Medical Center, Pampa
Controversies
In 2007, the Los Angeles Times ran a news story that alleged that the policies of Prime HealthCare Services, Inc., resulted in higher-than-average profits for the possible cost of patient care: "When Reddy's company, Prime Healthcare Services Inc., takes over a hospital, it typically cancels insurance contracts, allowing the hospital to collect steeply higher reimbursements. It has suspended services -- such as chemotherapy treatments, mental health care and birthing centers -- that patients need but aren't lucrative.... On four occasions since 2002, inspectors have found that Prime Healthcare facilities failed to meet minimum federal safety standards, placing their Medicare funding at risk."
In 2008 the State of California and Kaiser Permanente each sued Prime Healthcare over its balance billing practices and Kaiser obtained an injunction preventing Prime from continuing the practice; Prime had cancelled agreements with insurance companies when it acquired hospitals, leaving patients in an out-of-network situation resulting in higher costs, and has been aggressively pursuing patients including sending unpaid costs to collection agencies. This was the first of several suits between Prime and Kaiser. In June 2010 Kaiser sued Prime Healthcare for "trapping patients" and contended that Prime Healthcare needlessly admitted emergency room patients, rather than transfer them to Kaiser facilities and then sending their insurance companies highly inflated bills. Prime counter-sued Kaiser and the Service Employees International Union, claiming that Kaiser owed it $100 million in unpaid medical claims and that Kaiser and the union conspired to keep Prime out of the market; that suit was dismissed in 2012, and Prime appealed all the way to the US Supreme Court, which declined to hear the case in 2016. In 2015 both sides agreed on dropping their respective lawsuits and resolve them through confidential and binding arbitration.
In 2010 Prime Healthcare came under investigation by the US Department of Health and Human Services and the California Department of Justice about concerns over a reported spike in septicemia. The investigation centers around whether the spike in septicemia represents a large public health issue or multimillion-dollar Medicare fraud. Six Prime hospitals ranked in the 99th percentile of U.S. hospitals for septicemia and five were in the 95th percentile. In 2011 Prime Healthcare Service had high rates of kwashiorkor among its elderly patients. At Shasta Regional Medical Center, Prime reported 16.1% of its Medicare patients suffered from kwashiorkor, but California's average for Medicare patients is 0.2%. In 2011 California Watch reported that Prime Healthcare had a practice of transferring high numbers of patients from its emergency room to its hospital beds, specifically with patients on Medicare. Some families describe being trapped by doctors at Prime facilities and were unable to see their own doctor at another facility. Former Prime employees have described an orchestrated campaign of admitting Medicare and Kaiser patients, moving them from the emergency room to a hospital bed, in the interest of changing the fortune of a money-losing hospital. In September 2011, California Attorney General Kamala Harris rejected the approval for the sale of the Victor Valley Global Medical Center in Victorville, California, and stated that the sale would not be in the public interest.
In 2012, two executives at Prime Healthcare Services disclosed a patient's chart to multiple media outlets without the patient's express written consent. The release was in response to a California Watch article on Prime Healthcare Services billing practices at Shasta Regional Medical Center, which included claims by a Darlene Courtois about her treatment by Shasta. In this incident, Randall Hempling, the hospital CEO, and Dr. Marcia McCampbell, its chief medical officer, showed up at the offices of the Redding Record Searchlight and successfully convinced the paper's editor not to publish an article, echoing the California Watch claims by reference to Courtois' actual medical records.
In 2012, eight of Prime Healthcare Services' hospitals were named among the "100 Top Hospitals" in the nation by Thomson Reuters. In 2013, Prime Healthcare Services was named as one of the "Top 15 Health Systems" in the country by Truven Health Analytics.
In 2014, Garden City Hospital was sold to Prime Healthcare Services in a deal valued at $76 million. As of that point, Prime Healthcare operated 27 hospitals. The full listing of hospitals and their acquisition year is listed below.
In May 2016 US Department of Justice joined a qui tam case against Prime Health Care and its chief executive concerning Medicare fraud. The case was ongoing as of January 2017.
In 2016, Becker's Hospital Review listed four Prime Healthcare hospitals in a list of 49 hospitals with the lowest rate of serious complications.
Maps Prime Healthcare Services
References
External links
- Official website
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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